Uncle Ferd admires a woman in uniform...10 Female Soldiers Have Now Graduated Army Ranger School9 Apr 2018 - The U.S. Army's vice chief of staff praised the achievements of female soldiers Monday, describing how small numbers of women continue to join infantry and armored combat units and graduate from the service's most grueling training course.

"Ten women have graduated from Ranger School, which is our toughest school. We have a woman commanding a company in the 82nd Airborne Division, an infantry company," Gen. James McConville told an audience at the Future of War 2018 conference sponsored by New America and Arizona State University. It's been five years since former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted a ban on women serving in combat roles. Three years ago, the Army launched a historic effort to open Ranger School to female applicants.

Out of the 19 women who originally volunteered in April 2015, Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver became the first women to earn the coveted Ranger Tab that August. A third woman graduated that October. They accomplished a hard-won feat that has eluded many male soldiers since the course was founded in 1952. Ranger School is a 62-day course described as the Army's premier infantry leadership course; an ordeal that pushes students to their physical and mental limits.

From left, U.S. Army Capt. Kristen Griest, Maj. Lisa Jaster and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver share a moment following Jaster's graduation from Ranger School on Fort Benning, Ga.

On average, only about 40 percent of men successfully complete the course, Army officials maintain. And only about 25 percent of Ranger School students graduate without having to repeat at least one phase of the grueling course. "We have 170,000 women serving in the Army -- 170,000, that is almost the size of the Marine Corps," McConville said. "We have women in every single infantry, armor and artillery battalion and every single brigade combat team in the Army." The Army currently has 600 women in infantry and armor jobs, McConville said.

Initially, female officers who completed the training standards for infantry and armor were sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Hood, Texas. The Army is expanding that policy to include installations such as Fort Campbell, Kentucky ,and Fort Carson, Colorado, McConville said at the Association of the United States Army's Global Force Symposium in March. "If you meet the standards, you can serve anywhere you want in the United States Army," he said at AUSA. "Women are meeting the standards, and they are doing well."

All-female Crew Proves its Chops on Carrier Roosevelt...All-female Crew Proves its Chops on Carrier Roosevelt12 May 2018 - Brandi Hoeft didn't join the U.S. Navy to make a point about being a woman in a man's world -- the 20-year-old Rice Lake native knew she wanted to be in the military all her life.

But whether she originally intended to or not, Hoeft and a group of women on board the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt did make a statement this year. In what Navy officials say is likely a first for the 97,000-ton aircraft carrier, Hoeft and the rest of an all-female crew carried out the complicated and physically demanding job of catapult operations on the flight deck. It's a feat for a sector of the military that comprises only 18 percent women overall, and even fewer in its aviation track. "Some of the guys, they'd tell us, 'You're going to mess it up. You're not going to do it,'" Hoeft said from her perch on a coffee shop chair on Thursday in Rice Lake. "We told them, 'No, we are going to do it. We're strong. We can do this.' And we did." Their attitudes changed once Hoeft and the 35-woman team made their goal a reality, she said. Completing that goal, however, took some work.

Pulling the parts together

The USS Theodore Roosevelt has four catapults that rest upon a more than 1,000-foot-long deck. Those catapults launch aircraft -- or "birds," as Hoeft calls them -- into the air to carry out missions. The duties required to launch those aircrafts are numerous and complex, Hoeft said, and one must have proper certifications to carry them out. When the idea first began to circulate about an all-female catapult crew, there weren't enough women with the right qualifications. Assembling the crew required shuffling people around and urging women to obtain the needed certifications, she said. Eventually a team of two catapult crews were assembled, and they took over operations for a day on Feb. 28 while the ship was in the Persian Gulf.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet lands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). The carrier assembled a 35-woman crew to carry out flight operations

Esperanza Romero, work center supervisor for the USS Theodore Roosevelt's bow catapults, said having two catapult crews consisting of only women is, to the best of her knowledge, a first in the ship's 32-year history. She hopes the feat sends a positive message to women both in and out of the military. "Our job isn't necessarily a glamorous one," Romero said. "We work late hours; we're usually dirty. But when you're on the outside looking in, it's something really spectacular when you see a group of females launching a Super Hornet off the flight deck." "It's a stereotype that men are constantly doing all the big, heavy-duty jobs," she added. "That's not always the case. There are women going above and beyond and doing those same jobs, and doing it successfully."

All-female Crew Proves its Chops on Carrier Roosevelt...All-female Crew Proves its Chops on Carrier Roosevelt12 May 2018 - Brandi Hoeft didn't join the U.S. Navy to make a point about being a woman in a man's world -- the 20-year-old Rice Lake native knew she wanted to be in the military all her life.